Information processor

ABSTRACT

The invention provides an efficient transfer of video/audio contents recorded by a server in advance for a user to view the contents with a mobile terminal, whereby the user is relieved of troublesome operations. The information processor includes two record means for recording coded video/audio data, the second record means controls already played back data having already been viewed by the user of the data transferred from the first record means, and when data is newly transferred from the first record means, the retransfer means is provided which erases only the already played back data, and transfers the data corresponding to a capacity evacuated by the erasing from the first record means.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS(S)

This is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/052,940,filed Feb. 7, 2005, which application claims priority from Japan PatentApplication No. 2004-184408, filed Jun. 23, 2004, the entire disclosureof which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an information processor and inparticular to a device for playback of recorded information.

The background art in the technical filed includes the JPA-No.169250/2001 (patent document 1) as an example. This publication mentionsto provide a mobile display system as the problem, which implementstransferring image information from a large-capacity video server to asmall-capacity mobile terminal by subdividing them, to automatecomplicated setting operations involving transferring at each time, andto transfer image information with a simple operation. The publicationdiscloses a technique that manages how far the image is viewed with theterminal as an audiovisual address (ST10), in transferring the imageinformation from the video server, determines the image to be viewednext from the audiovisual address (ST16 to ST20), and automaticallytransfers the image to be viewed next based on this audiovisual address(ST22 to ST26).

The MPEG video compression technology has been used in various types ofdevices, which digitizes image information to record them in a storagemedium by means of the compression coding theory, and transfers itthrough communication media. There are some applied examples, such as aDVD & hard disk read/write drive using the MPEG-2 Video standard(ISO/IEC 13818-2), and a communication system between mobile terminalsusing the MPEG-4 Video standard (ISO/IEC 14496-2).

The recording duration becomes some hours to some hundred hours whenrecording image information in a HDD or a DVD; and it has become severalhours when recording them in a memory IC used in a mobile phone or amobile terminal. This extension of the recording duration has realizedthat a user records the recently launched digital broadcasting programsand so forth in a HDD or a DVD over a long period, duplicates them in amemory IC for the mobile terminal, and thereby views the images alreadyrecorded in the user's home while being out. And in the case of a mobilephone having the communication function, the user is able to receive andenjoy video/audio contents from the delivery server thereof by way ofthe network.

To view the video/audio contents by using a mobile phone or a mobileterminal will involve the necessity of the video/audio contentstransferred from another device having the recording medium of a largercapacity than the storage capacities of these devices; and this transferoperation is very troublesome to the user. When the user has lots ofprolonged period programs or program groups recorded in the hard disk athome, and transfers them to the mobile phone to view them in a movingtransportation, if all the program contents cannot be transferred to thememory contained in the mobile phone, the user will have to transfer thedata each time when coming back home. In this case, the HDD recorderdoes not possess the information as to how far the user has viewed theprogram contents recorded in the hard disk while being out, whichrequires the user to carry out the following operations: setting apermissible editing point to the end of the part that the user hasviewed, and retransferring the part following thereafter, which the userhas not yet viewed, to the memory in the mobile phone. Further, if theuser has not yet viewed part of the program contents that the user hadfirst transferred to the mobile phone, the user has to perform thefollowing operations: erasing the other parts except that part on theside of the mobile phone, and recording the contents in the memory so asto follow thereafter, which the user edited with the HDD recorder in thesame manner as the above operations.

In view of these circumstances, the conventional technique discloses asystem that implements ‘in transferring image information from alarge-capacity video server to a small-capacity mobile terminal bysubdividing them, to automate complicated setting operations involvingtransferring at each time, and to transfer image information with asimple operation’.

However, the conventional technique did not sufficiently consider theusability in the point of shortening the user's operation time whentransferring the video data to the mobile device. For example, theconventional technique did disclose only the transfer of a piece ofimage information, and did not consider the usability when the userwishes to view plural image information pieces (segments) continuously(e.g., to view the program broadcast every week continuously). And intransferring the data, the conventional technique did not consider whattypes of user interfaces should be provided to enhance the usability.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An information processor according to the present invention includesrecording and playing back plural data segments respectively to and froma first recording medium. Some of the data segments are recorded to asecond recording medium, and then played back. Information is maintainedas to which segments have been transferred to the second recordingmedium and which have been played back from the second recording medium.Segments which have been played back from the second recording mediumcan then be deleted and replaced with next segments from the firstrecording medium.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features, objects and advantages of the presentinvention will become more apparent from the following description whentaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of a system relating to the firstembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the HDD recorder in the first embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the mobile phone in the first embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the data transfer by way of the memory IC inthe first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a chart illustrating the transition of the data transfer byway of the memory IC in the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a chart illustrating a GUI construction in the firstembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a chart illustrating a GUI construction in the firstembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a chart illustrating a GUI construction in the firstembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a chart illustrating the front panel of the HDD recorder inthe first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a chart illustrating the remote control unit of the HDDrecorder in the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a schematic representation of a system relating to the secondembodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 12 is a schematic representation of a system relating to the thirdembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The preferred embodiments will be described with reference to theaccompanying drawings.

Embodiment 1

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of a system relating to the firstembodiment of the present invention. The HDD recorder will be describedas an example of the information processor. In the drawing, the numeralsymbol 100 denotes the mobile phone, 200 denotes the HDD recorder, and300 denotes a memory IC being a recording medium. In this system, theuser transfers TV broadcast program contents recorded in the hard diskby the HDD recorder 200 to the memory IC 300, and views the programcontents with the mobile phone 100. The construction of this system willbe described in due order with the accompanying drawings. The HDDrecorder 200 in this embodiment is a device that receives the groundwave analog TV broadcast and records the broadcast programs in the harddisk.

FIG. 2 illustrates a construction of the HDD recorder 200. The broadcastsignal supplied from an input terminal 201 by way of an antenna or aCATV cable terminal is sent to a tuner 202. The tuner 202 performs thedecoding, error correction, and analog/digital conversion and so forthof this signal, and sends the output as the digital video and digitalaudio signals to an A/V-MPEG encoder 203.

The A/V-MPEG encoder 203 performs the coding compression of the videoand audio signals each according to the MPEG 2 standard, and convertsthe signals into the coded strings called the video elementary streamand the audio elementary stream.

Further, the A/V-MPEG encoder 203 divides each of the bit streams intothe packet string of a fixed length called the transport stream(hereunder, abbreviated as TS); and then, a multiplexing block 204performs the time-division multiplexing of the video and audio signalsin a unit of the packet. A system controller 206 performs the selectionof the received programs and the control of the blocks 202 through 204.The user designates the program to be recorded and the controlinformation such as reserved information by means of a remote controllerbeing not illustrated; a user interface block 205 receives varioussignals from the remote controller, which are taught to the systemcontroller 206 by way of a system bus 208.

The system controller 206 controls the peripheral blocks on the basis ofthe control information by way of the system bus 208.

The program contents that the user designated to record are subjected tothe coding compression, and are outputted from the multiplexing block204. When recording the program contents in the hard disk of the HDD,the TS data outputted from the multiplexing block 204 is transmitted toan ATA interface 209 by way of a media bus 211 such as the PCI bus.While performing the handshaking by the command with an HDD 210according to the ATA standard being the common standard for the HDD, theATA interface 209 records the received TS data in the hard disk of theHDD 210. Here, the data and time information of the program and so forthare designated by the system controller 206, and are recordedsimultaneously with the program contents by the HDD 210.

The program contents data fed into the HDD 210 are recorded according toa predetermined file system. This embodiment assumes the format calledthe UDF (Universal Disk Format) used in the DVD and HDD, etc., as thefile system. The file to record one-program contents based on the UDF isopened simultaneously with the start of recording, and the contents arewritten additionally in the order coded by the A/V-MPEG encoder 203.This file is called the AV stream file in this embodiment.

When the AV stream file is recorded, the management information issimultaneously recorded, which manages that the information of whichtime is recorded at which sector position.

This is called the record management information. The record managementinformation is updated in the system controller 206 during recordingwhenever necessary, which is DMA-transferred by a media bus controller207 in the interval while the program contents data is transmitted fromthe multiplexing block 204 to the ATA IF 209, and is stored in an areafor the record management information of the HDD 210.

Owing to the record management information, when the user intends tosearch and playback the broadcast program at a specific time, the useris able to refer to the storage position of the program contentscorresponding to the designated time.

The HDD 210 reads out the program contents from the storage position,and a demultiplexer 212 separates the contents data into video packetsand audio packets, which are sent to an A/V MPEG decoder 215. The MPEGdecoder 215 expands the coded/compressed signals from the demultiplexer212, decodes the programs designated by the user, and outputs the videoand audio signals from terminals 216 and 217 to an external display andmonitoring device.

When the transfer command by the user is notified to the systemcontroller 206 by way of the user IF 205, some of the program contentsrecorded in the hard disk of the HDD 210 are transferred to a memory IC214 through a memory I/F 213. Here, the information for managing whichprogram contents are stored in which file is recorded in the memory IC214 as the record management information in the same manner as the HDD210.

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic construction, in which the memory IC 214is mounted on the mobile phone 100 and the information recorded by theHDD 210 is played back.

When the user plays back the information in the memory IC through thebutton operations, the playback command is notified to a systemcontroller 108 through a user IF 107. Receiving this command, the systemcontroller 108 issues a command to make a memory IF 101 read out theprogram contents in the memory IC 214 recorded in advance, and thememory IF 101 reads out the specified program contents from the memoryIC 214. Next, a demultiplexer 103 demultiplexes the read-out programcontents into the TS packets, an A/V MPEG decoder 104 performs theexpansion processing to the audio and video compressed signals each, anda LCD display 105 and a speaker 106 outputs the decoded video and audiosignals.

Here, the information on the read-out-contents part of the programs readout from the memory IC 214 for the user to view is recorded in thememory IC 214 as playback management information. The information on thefree storage capacity of the memory IC 214 is updated as well. Thereby,it becomes possible to discriminate the portion to be continuouslyplayed back from the portion being already viewed. The memory IC with aportion already played back is mounted again on the HDD recorder 200,where the portion already played back is deleted, and new programcontents are recorded.

FIG. 4 illustrates the flow of the above processing that is typicallyperformed by executable program code. The memory IC is subjected to thefile system formatting at the start of use (700), which makes the memoryIC accessible to the file. Next, the record management information andplayback management information are created (701). As the HDD recorder200 performs the writing of video and audio contents to the memory IC(702), the record management information is updated in regard to therecorded program contents, and the information showing which programcontents are recorded in which areas of the memory IC is written (703).Next, the memory IC 214 is transferred to the mobile phone 100, and theprogram contents in the memory IC are played back (704). The informationas to which part is played back is recorded in the playback managementinformation. When playback is continuously performed, the playbackmanagement information is updated at any time (705).

When the user transfers the memory IC again to the HDD recorder 200 inthis state, and makes the command to record the continuation of theprogram contents being already transferred, first the HDD recorder 200reads out the free storage capacity of the memory IC and the playbackmanagement information, and the user recognizes that the files untilwhich part of the program contents being already recorded in the memoryIC is played back (706). Next, the already played back program contentsdata is erased (707), the playback management information is updatedaccordingly, the data that is played back is erased, and the point to beplayed back next is maintained (708). Next, the program contents beingthe continuation of the already played back data is read out from thehard disk to be written in the free storage area of the memory IC (709),and the record management information corresponding to the newlyrecorded data is updated (710). The user mounts the memory IC with therecording completed on the mobile phone 100 in the same manner as theformer, and enjoys the playback.

FIG. 5 illustrates the state that the storage locations containing theprogram contents in the hard disk and the program contents in the memoryIC transition by transferring the data.

In the drawing, the numeral symbol 800 denotes the whole storage area ofthe hard disk (HDD), 900 the whole storage area of the memory IC.

It is assumed that the program contents that the user wishes to viewcontinuously on the mobile phone are recorded in the part 810 as shownby hatching in the HDD in the first place, and the storage area 900 ofthe memory IC is vacant (FIG. 5A). Here, if the user demands the deviceto transfer the program contents to the memory IC, the program contentspart (811) corresponding to the whole capacity of the memory IC 900 istaken out and is copied in the memory IC 900 (910). Thereby, the wholecapacity of the memory IC is occupied with the program contents (FIG.5B). If the area 810 is smaller than 900, the whole 810 is copied in900.

Next, as the user plays back a part of 910 while traveling to work, thestorage area 900 is divided into the already played back part (9111) of911 and the not-yet played back part (9112) of 911. In this state, ifthe user mounts the memory IC on the HDD recorder and issues theinstruction to record the program contents to be continued to thealready played back data, the area 9111 is erased and the part 812 beingthe continuation of the already transferred part 811 in 810 istransferred from the leading thereof. That is, the part 813 in FIG. 5Cis transferred to become the part 913 in FIG. 5D.

Further, when the user mounts the memory IC on the mobile phone to startthe playback, the control is made such that the playback is performedfrom the leading of the part 9112 till the end of 9112, and thereafterplayback of the part 913 is started.

When the capacity of the memory IC is small in this manner, and thequantity to be played back at one time is limited to a part of thememory IC because of the commuter time or the like, the user comes backhome before the next occasion of playback to record the continual datacorresponding to the played back quantity while sleeping in the night,for example, and thereby the user is able to efficiently use thecapacity of the memory IC. That is, this system makes it easy to avoidsuch an inconvenient state that the user cannot view the continualcontents until playing back all the data recorded in the memory IC andcoming back home once.

FIG. 5 shows the state that the continuous data is stored in continuousstorage locations, for the sake of convenience. However, if the physicallocation of the memory IC is controlled discontinuous, the equivalenteffect can be achieved. To be more concrete, the correspondence betweenthe file of the recorded program contents and the physical location iscontrolled on the file system; the relation between the time informationof the record information existing in the memory IC and the file (recordmanagement information), and the time information on the order ofplayback and the time duration information of the playback-completionpart until now (playback management information) are controlled, whichare stored in the memory IC so that the user can refer to them;accordingly, the equivalent system can be realized.

In the case of the coding system using the inter-frame reference such asthe MPEG video contents, a plan should be made such that the breakpointsof the already played back part and the not-yet played back part arecontrolled to be complete on the delimiting points of the GOP (Group OfPicture) structure, so that the pictures are not played back strangelyon the delimiting points. Another plan should be made such that, inerasing the already played back part, some of the last part thereof isleft as the not-yet played back part, and the user can view the programcontents with that part overlapped when starting the playback again.

Next, the user interface of this embodiment will be described. The userinterface of this embodiment is characterized by displaying a play listfor recording the program contents to the memory IC from now incontinuation and playing them back, already recorded part in the memoryIC of this play list, and already played back part of the data recordedin the memory IC.

FIG. 6 illustrates a GUI (Graphical User Interface) screen on the HDDrecorder, in performing the data transfer to the memory IC in thisembodiment. In the drawing, the numeral symbol 1000 signifies thethumbnail strings for each scene that are beforehand controlled in HDDand are treated as the editing unit. Hereafter, this scene is called thechapter. These segments can be constituent chapters in a single movie orprogram. The segments can belong to numerous movies or programs; e.g.,segments A and B might belong to “program 1”; segments C and D mightbelong to “movie 1”; segment E might belong to “program 2”; and segmentF might belong to “program 3”. A to F show the representative thumbnailsof each chapter. The area 1001 is to display the chapter strings forstoring the contents in the memory IC and playing them back, which formsthe play list for playing them back in due order from left.

When registering the play list in the area 1001, the user selects thecandidates from the chapter strings in 1000, and arranges them in theplaces in 1001 according to a desired playback order to thereby updatethe play list in 1001. The box 1002 is to display which part in the playlist 1001 is stored actually in the memory IC, which is displayed aftertransferring data to the memory IC. The box 1002 need not be displayedin this situation. FIG. 6 illustrates the state that all the chapters A,B and part of the chapter C are stored and the already played back datadoes not yet exist in the memory IC at all.

FIG. 7 illustrates the state that the memory IC is once mounted on themobile phone from the state of FIG. 6 and some of it is played back, theplayed back part is checked again on the HDD recorder, and the coloredpart 1003 shows the already played back part in the memory IC. Thereby,the user is able to know visually which part of the playback iscompleted. Here, if the user instructs the HDD recorder to transfer datato the memory IC by means of menu operations or button operations, thepart 1003 already played back is erased, and the next part in 1002 isrecorded in the memory IC by the evacuated capacity instead.

FIG. 8 illustrates the state that the recorded part of 1002 is updatedto correspond with the above. That is, part of the chapter C, chapter E,and part of the chapter F are recorded. Using this GUI and repeating thetransfer of memory IC will make it possible to visually inform the userof the state of data transfer to the memory IC and the playbackinformation. The parts 1001, 1002, and 1003 may be erased appropriatelyby scrolling left, and the already played back chapters may be erasedfrom the inside of 1002.

In FIG. 8, the record area and the playback area are made to control thehalfway position of the chapter. However, the interface may be arrangedsuch that the chapters are automatically delimited at the delimitingpositions of the already played back part and the not-yet played backpart, and the thumbnails in 1000 and 1001 are automatically updated.

This GUI performs the registration of the play list 1001 by thethumbnail display; however, the equivalent effect can be achieved with aconfiguration using a list display by the characters only. That is, aslong as the play list to be recorded and played back continuously fromnow on corresponding to 1001, the already recorded part corresponding to1002, and the already played back part corresponding to 1003 aredisplayed to the user by any display format, the equivalent effect canbe achieved.

FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 illustrate the interface, by which the user instructsto transfer data from the registered play list to the free storage areaof the memory IC. FIG. 9 shows a button equipped on the front panel.Pressing this button can attain the processing corresponding to thetransition from FIG. 7 to FIG. 8. Thereby, the batch processing can bemade by a button operation as to erasing the already played back partand retransferring the data corresponding to the erased memory capacity.FIG. 10 shows an example in which a similar button is equipped on theremote controller.

To be more concrete, the user first mounts the memory IC on the HDDrecorder and presses the data transfer button as mentioned above. TheHDD recorder reads out the record management information and theplayback management information stored in the memory IC, and detects howfar the play lists are already recorded and how far the data recordedcurrently in the memory IC is already played back. And, the HDD recordererases the already played back part on the memory IC, and transfers thedata to be recorded next on the play list, corresponding to the erasedmemory capacity.

Here, the data transfer button is equipped on the HDD recorder or on theremote controller in the above example, which is not limited to this.For example, the data transfer button may be provided on the mobilephone when the HDD recorder and the mobile phone are directly connectedwith a cable and so forth.

Generally, the editing of the play list 1002 is the processing that theuser needs a considerable time, such as selecting the thumbnails in HDD.Now, in such a case that the user edits many chapters in a lump as aplay list, for example, and transfers them in increments to the memoryIC every day for playback, the user only needs to remount the memory ICon the HDD recorder or on the mobile phone, and to press the datatransfer button as shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10, so that the user canperform the desired processing. Thereby, the everyday editing work ofthe play list can be reduced, and the usability for the user can beenhanced.

Here, the play list is not limited to what is created from onevideo/audio data. That is, the user may create one play list byselecting the chapters that the user wishes to view among multiplevideo/audio data. For example, the user only needs to display multiplevideo/audio data in the area 1000 of the chapter string or to displayone by one in due order, to select the chapters that the user wishes toview among them, and to insert the selected into the area 1001 of theplay list. In this case, to be continued to the end of the firstvideo/audio data, the second video/audio data is automaticallytransferred to the memory IC, which makes it unnecessary to set the datatransfer for each of the video/audio data, which is necessary in theconventional technique, thus enhancing the usability. Especially in sucha case that the user records the every week broadcast program, transfersthe data of this program to the memory IC, and continuously views thisprogram, the effect of enhanced usability is remarkable.

As shown in FIG. 7, this embodiment is characterized in that the datatransfer of the chapters B and D to the memory IC is not carried out.That is, in the case of the data transfer from a large-capacityrecording medium such as the HDD to a small-capacity recording mediumsuch as the memory IC, a useless data transfer should be avoided as muchas possible. Instead of transferring all the video/audio data as oneunit to the memory IC by subdividing it as the conventional technique,this embodiment selects the chapters that the user views by transferringthe data to the memory IC on the side of the HDD recorder in advance,and creates the play list. Thereby, it is possible to avoid a uselesstransfer of the program data, which the user will not view after thetransfer.

This embodiment describes an example in which the play list is edited ina unit of the chapter, however it may be edited in a unit of theprogram.

This embodiment takes on a construction that encodes an analog broadcastrecord and records the result in the HDD, and transfers this to thememory IC. However, with regard to the process of the data transfer tothe memory IC and the method of controlling the record managementinformation and playback management information and so forth of thisembodiment, the equivalent protocols can be employed in a device thatrecords various digital broadcast programs in the HDD and transfersthem, or in a device that transforms once recorded data into anotherdata stream conforming to a different standard.

Embodiment 2

FIG. 11 represents a system of the second embodiment, in which the datatransfer between the HDD recorder and the mobile phone is performed byway of connecting to the USB network or the Ethernet (trademark)network, instead of the data transfer by way of the memory IC. In thiscase, the transfer of the program contents and the exchange of therecord and playback management information are performed by way of thenetwork. By dealing with the storage capacity of the memory in themobile phone in the same manner as the memory IC of the firstembodiment, the same effect as the first embodiment can be achieved. Toreplace the memory IF of the first embodiment by the network IF and toemploy the same data transfer protocol will realize the secondembodiment.

Embodiment 3

FIG. 12 represents a system of the third embodiment, in which the datatransfer between the HDD recorder and the mobile phone is performed byway of the wireless IF. In this case, the state of the memory in themobile phone is appropriately communicated to the HDD recorder throughthe wireless IF. The data transfer of the program contents to the mobilephone may be performed simultaneously while viewing on the mobile phone,for example. In this case, the residual quantity of the memory in themobile phone is notified periodically to the HDD recorder as the server,and the data transfer within the free storage capacity is performedintermittently. This function will prevent the deficiency that themobile phone becomes unable to store the data in the memory.

While pausing the playback, the mobile phone automatically performs thecommunication with the HDD recorder to transfer the data in the memoryon the mobile phone; when the user performs a playback operation, theprogram contents for long periods are available with a high possibility.Also in this case, by exchanging the data of the record and playbackmanagement information between the HDD recorder and the mobile phonewhile keeping synchronization, the processing can be performed with thesame construction as the protocol of the data transfer in the firstembodiment.

This embodiment buffers the data once in the memory; therefore, it ispossible to transfer the data spending more time than the case of thedata transfer in real time. Accordingly, this embodiment has thesecondary effect that presents the user with higher quality picturesthan the video/audio contents delivered in real time.

The above embodiments have described the data transfer between the HDDrecorder and the mobile phone for the most part. However, the inventioncan be applied in the same manner between a home server and a mobiledevice, or between a commercial server and a device connected thereto.In other words, the invention can be applied to a case in which the datatransfer is performed from a device having a large capacity recordingmedium to a device having a small capacity recording medium bysubdividing the data.

The above embodiments have mainly described the video/audio data,however the invention is not limited to this. The invention can beapplied to video data only, to audio data only, and to music data and soforth, or to other information and contents as well.

1. A method of managing multimedia content on a mobile device, themethod comprising: generating a play list of multimedia contentincluding one or more multimedia programs for download to the mobiledevice; receiving the one or more multimedia programs from a multimediasource in accordance with the play list; storing the one or moremultimedia programs in a memory of the mobile device; updatingmanagement information when the multimedia content is reproduced at themobile device, said updating comprising recording a status of the one ormore multimedia programs as fully or partially reproduced; determining asize of data reproduced at the mobile device based on the managementinformation; preparing a transfer plan based on a coding system of theone or more multimedia programs, including determining reference pointsfor the partially reproduced programs such that playback of thepartially reproduced programs can proceed from the reference points andthe reference points provide an overlap with a portion of the partiallyreproduced multimedia programs already reproduced at the mobile device;and transferring additional multimedia content from the multimediasource to the mobile device in accordance with the transfer plan,wherein each fully reproduced multimedia program is erased and a portionof each partially reproduced program is erased up to its correspondingreference point, and wherein a size of the multimedia contenttransferred is determined based on the size of the data reproduced atthe mobile device.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimediacontent comprises MPEG-encoded video content.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the memory comprises a detachable integrated circuit and whereintransferring the additional multimedia content comprises mounting theintegrated circuit to the multimedia source such that an electricalconnection is formed between the integrated circuit and a controller ofthe multimedia source.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprisingdisplaying an indication of the fully reproduced and partiallyreproduced multimedia programs at the mobile device.